


Monsters

by orphan_account



Series: Razor Blade Romance [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Birds, Crows, Dreams, Gen, Hunters, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma, Psychology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems as though she has constant nightmares where she's falling into a dark hole; this time she dreams she's a bird that was shot out of the sky. Because of this dream, and all the others, her family believes her to be strange. This time around, she plans to tell her doctor first, rather than her frenzied mother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monsters

**Monster**

The hallway seemed longer than it really was, and with every footstep, every clunk of her heel, it lengthened and the walls stretched. Alone, Abigail looked back, large brown eyes scanning for her psyche’s intruders. Nobody was there. She didn't know whether that was supposed to comfort her or not, so she dismissed the empty notion and kept walking. 

Pulling open the inside door, she stepped through, strong smells of diverse foods shaking hands with her sensory glands. A faint smile crossed her lips, but didn't meet her eyes. She looked around for a moment, considered grabbing a snack from the hippie grocery store, but decided against it. Abigail was supposed to go home for dinner that night and didn't want to be full before she ate her mother's garlic mashed potatoes. 

Finally spotting the elevator, she practically ran to it, her heart racing. Hand lingering over the lock, she twisted it, and slid the door open. Automatically the gate creaked to the right. She climbed in and pressed the big, black button for the third floor. As the rusty, green gate slid shut she wished she'd taken the stairs. A man about twice her age banged on the door as the elevator began to ascend. 

She wished she'd taken the stairs. The elevator seemed like it was too old to carry people. It groaned and screeched with time and lack of precision, frightening her into closing her eyes until she began counting. 

_One… Two… Three…_

Opening her eyes, the lift jerked to a halt. Abigail found herself grappling at the paneling, holding on as if the floor would drop. 

The dull metal gate shrieked as it opened, allowing her access to the outside door. As she slid the wooden panel from the frame and stepped out into the hallway, she looked down at her cowboy boots, waiting for something to happen. What, she didn't know, but her headache had started up again and she started to wince. Pain shot through her skull, causing her to grip her temples with one hand. Pulling her fingers away, she flexed them. Sometimes it felt as if her body wasn't her own, like it was somebody else's, or like somebody was taking control of her and she had no way to fight. Those were her biggest fears, but her mother and father and sisters and brothers shunned her when she talked like that. That's why she had to go to the doctor's in the first place. 

Abigail thought herself crazy.

Mainly she needed somebody to talk to, but the medication didn't hurt either. 

She knew the doctor thought she was crazy.

_Four... Five… Six…_

As she started walking, she thought she heard footsteps behind her; when she looked back there was nobody. _Nobody_. Her hands started to shake. Taking a few more steps, she looked behind her again, and thought she saw a shadow  \-- a lengthy thing fluttering against cream-colored walls like a candle's flame, horns atop its head long and pointy, curving out from its temples. Expression taking that step from fear to horror, she stared for a moment longer and ran, her boots feeling heavy on her feet. She turned down the hallway and hoped it was the right one. Because of her heels’ volume from hitting brown tile beneath, she couldn't hear anything else, but she could see somebody coming toward her.

Abigail's only desire was to sit on the large leather couch in Dr. Baldini's office and talk about her dream. 

Except, no, the person walked passed her, hardly noticing her trepidation.

When she came to the door, she halted. It seemed to twist and turn in front of her, melting under her grasp as she frantically rang the buzzer. After ringing it a few times in a row, her fists found themselves banging on the slick wood so hard that the door's golden number six lost a screw holding it in. The number dangled precariously from the wood, quivering with each beat as a nine. 

Dr. Baldini pulled open the door, a look of shock penetrating her flawless skin. Well, flawless except for the beauty mark above her lip. "Come in. Come in." Her hair was up in a bun, dark brown tendrils falling into her face. Olive skin looked like smooth almond paste. Sculpted eyebrows with high arches decorated her caramel cat’s eyes. She had a petite nose which tilted upward. Her deep, yet short, philtrum led into a ‘v’ on her thick upper lip -- the bottom just as big. Waist tiny, her large bosom and wide hips were of equal proportion. And although she never meant to, she made Abigail feel ugly. 

The patient entered the room, which was lit only by a couple of dull lamps. She headed straight for the large leather couch, plunked herself down, and waited for the doctor to ask.

"What happened? Are you alright?" Dr. Baldini's question was the same one Abigail's mother asked everyday. She went to the kitchenette, filling two plastic cups with water which tasted like chlorine. Returning to her patient, who looked as though she were having difficulty breathing, she placed one cup on a coaster beside Abigail, and the next cup on the coaster on the coffee table. After she sat down, Abigail's eyes filled with tears and she could only numbly say, "I thought I saw something."

" _Did_ you see something?" Dr. Baldini took a sip from her water, cradling the red cup in her hands.

Abigail shrugged. Appearing glum, like a leech had sucked life force from her, instead of only blood, she changed her attention from her fear to the middle of the night.  "I want to tell you about my dream." It wouldn’t help her case if she were in hysterics during her session.

Nodding, Dr. Baldini took another sip. "Alright, go ahead. Tell me about your dream."

"But I don't want you to say anything about it. I just want to tell you it and let it be told, okay? I don't want to hear I need to be on more medication or I need to come here every week. I just want to tell you my dream. Is that okay? Please tell me that's okay."

"It's okay, Abigail. Go ahead and tell me your dream." Dr. Baldini looked as if she understood the tone in her patient’s voice, calm as could be, not as though Abigail were just another patient. The psychiatrist took care of her patient as if she were her daughter, but never overstepped necessary boundaries. Abigail felt it.

Sometimes she wished Dr. Baldini really _was_ her mother.

A smile crossed Abigail's face, and this time it reached her eyes. "Okay, so I dreamed I was walking on a path at night. I was walking and \-- and I couldn't see the stars above me. There were no trees, no moon. All I could see was the path. I want to get that straight. It was as if I was driving on a road at night; the light from the headlights being the only thing that lit what was in front of me… except I was walking. Does that make sense?" She stopped and looked at Dr. Baldini who nodded. Abigail's mouth twitched into a half smile that didn't meet her eyes, her blotchy freckles dancing on her pale face. 

When she started again she was playing with the hems of her flannel’s sleeves. "And then I realized I wasn't a human \-- that I was a crow. I was this crow and I could fly away and do anything I wanted. Suddenly, I heard running water. There were bushes and trees around me, but barely any light. I couldn't really see much in the dream, but I heard voices. There were these men coming up the path, and then I realized I wasn't on the path anymore, that I was somewhere on the grass. I didn't know where the running water sound was coming from because I couldn't see it, but it must've been there. And then those men came…. I tried to fly away when I saw them, but I experienced the worst pain I could possibly ever imagine. I felt it in my dream…. 

"One of them had shot me, so I was falling, falling from the sky! I hit the ground. When one of them picked me up, I was too close to death to move. They took me back to their cabin where there was a fire in a fireplace. They put me in a cage and they locked it. I watched them as they ate their chicken or turkey or whatever bird it was. I knew I was too small to be eaten, but I was scared anyway. _What were they going to do with me?_ I had asked this question many times as I'd stood there, hopping and squawking and trying to get out, but there was no way out! I tried and I tried, but I couldn't. 

"And then, when they were done eating they took me out of the cage. I pecked at the hand that held me. He was squeezing me too tightly, and I tried to get out, but I couldn't! 

"I was no longer the bird at this point. I don't know what I was because I could see everybody firmly in my dream, all three of them. Maybe I was an astral projection of the crow or something; I \-- I know that can happen in dreams _._ So, I watched them as they clipped the struggling crow onto a metal tray in the middle of the table. They took a scalpel. One man dug into the bird when it was still alive. The thing was, because this was a dream, the bird kept struggling! The little beautiful crow kept struggling even when they'd cut off its head, even when its wings were gone, its heart -- everything! This bird, the magical death being, kept going and going and it wouldn't stop!

"It was so sad that I woke up with a start, crying. I was sobbing this morning because I'd watched that crow get mutilated. But, I don't want you to say anything about it. I don't want to hear that I'm crazy or that I need to go up on my medication. I like who I am now and I like the things I can do."

Dr. Baldini nodded. "Okay, then I won't. I just want you to think about it. I know you have a lot of paranoia and anxiety. Anyway, I must say that is a very imaginative, beautiful dream. I like hearing about those, you know." The doctor stood, and stepped around the coffee table to open a window. 

"Before I go, I must show you this." Abigail pulled up her shirt, revealing small hole in her fleshy side. There was no blood, but the hole went deeper than just a surface wound, was the size of a bullet, and she could probably stick her finger up in it. In fact, she had earlier that day when she first found it. 

Dr. Baldini smiled sadly. "Be careful. That's all I have to say. Just, be careful. When you dabble with yourself, you could get hurt."

Abigail got up from the couch and went to the window. "I know I'm not allowed to give you a hug, but I'll think about that medication. Thank you so much for listening to me. My mother never does… I'm sure everyone thinks I'm insane."

"You're not. You need help is all." 

When Abigail shifted form, she spread her black wings and flew from the office. All Dr. Baldini could do was close the latch behind her and watch her fall and fall onto the cold, hard ground.

**Author's Note:**

> If you leave anything, I'll check out your work. If you don't, thanks for reading! It really means a lot just to get a hit.


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